1980: Home Computers
With very
little time to sell in 1979, 1980 became the first real year of the Atari 8-bit
computers. As the year began, several
games were released for the platform including 3D-Tic-Tac-Toe, Super
Breakout and Space Invaders. Space Invaders was particularly
interesting.
Even though Atari had secured the license from Taito, and the
8-bit computers had the power to replicate the game exactly as designed,
programmer Rob Fulop decided to make an almost entirely different game.
"The reason Atari
800 was different from the original was very simple and somewhat
embarrassing. I was 23 years old at the time, and with one 'port' already
under my belt (2600 Night Driver), I figured I
was far too cool to do another straight port of an existing coin-op
game. You have to remember that at Atari, programmers had nobody that
approved their plans, basically people like myself were given 100 percent
liberty to create whatever we wanted. There was no approval process, no 'pitch
meetings', no specs that needed sign off.
In retrospect, such
freedom is really astonishing to me given what is now required to put something
into production. But at that time, it was totally up to the programmer. Nobody
told me to do Space Invaders, it was my
choice. I decided to change the original, not because I thought the original
was 'broken' in any way, but simply because I was looking to 'make my mark'
whatever that meant." cxxxvii
- Rob Fulop
The game was
so different, in fact, that an independent developer named Joe Hellesen (who
would go on to create many more 8-bit, ST and Amiga titles including Pac-Man for the Atari 8-bit computers) created
a nearly arcade perfect version in 1981.
After
the initial run of games for the 8-bit computers, though, Atari was ready to
stop all game development on the machine. Atari management was keen to
differentiate the computers and stop the comparisons to the VCS.
"One of the very few decisions
they were confident in was the decision to clearly differentiate the home
computer from the video game machine... So the rule was simple: no more games." cxxxviii
- Chris Crawford
Instead of
working on games, Crawford got started on several edutainment titles, including
a power company simulation named Energy
Czar and nuclear reactor simulator named SCRAM. Fellow programmers
were hard at work on bookkeeping and business software.
However,
even though Atari wanted to separate the computer line from its video games
so it could be seen as a serious contender in the market, the company made one huge
and glaring mistake that would pretty much ruin that idea before it ever got
off the ground: it released the game Star
Raiders.
Programmed by
Doug Neubauer, the game was released in March of 1980. Neubauer was hired by
Atari in 1979 as a chip design engineer, but worked on Star Raiders on the side, developing on a wire-wrapped 8-bit
prototype before the production models were ready. Star Raiders was designed as 3D version of a game that was very
popular on college campuses and computer rooms in the 1970s.
"Star Raiders was to be a 3-D version of the Star Trek game played on the mainframe
computers of that time. The Star Trek game was all text and not played in real
time, but it had the idea of ship damage and sector scanners and charts." cxxxix
- Doug Neubauer
The 3D visuals
and game play of Star Raiders was
like nothing that had come before in a computer games. Neubauer's fellow
employees at Atari were blown away by the finished product.
"The employees in
the company went bonkers over the game, which was the first true-to-life,
three-dimensional videogame... The visual effects were dazzling, especially
when the stars whizzed by when you warped, or when the four kinds of enemy
ships came zooming out of nowhere either behind or in front of you." cxl
- Michael S. Tomczyk
Upon release, Star Raiders became the first "killer
app" of computer gaming. It was the first computer game that could be
called a "machine seller".
"It's pretty amazing, the way
the game caught on. I think it was the first game to combine action with a strategy
screen, and luckily, the concept worked out pretty well." cxli
- Doug Neubauer
Even the mainstream
press caught on to the fury over the game.
"The
name of the game is Star Raiders. It
is the best possible combination of a shooting gallery and a planetarium. It is
the reason I was up till 1 a.m. the night before. It costs about
$530 to own one, assuming you've already got a color TV." cxlii
-Henry Allen, The Washington Post, September 2, 1980
Of course, the
success of Star Raiders had a serious
downside for the Atari home computer division: it solidified the industry
misconception that the 400 and 800 were not serious computers.
"Who would buy a
serious computer from the world's most successful video game and arcade
company? Many customers thought the Atari 400 and 800 were more expensive
versions of the Atari 2600 video game machine. Some people even doubted whether
the Atari 400 and 800 were real computers. " cxliii
- Michael S. Tomczyk
One of the
main problems for the Atari 8-bit computers was their reputation for having a
lack of software. Atari simply could not create enough titles in-house to make
the relatively expensive purchase of an Atari computer worthwhile to anyone,
other than hardcore gamers and game programmers.
"Unfortunately,
Atari neutralized their own advantage. To everyone's shock and dismay, they
decided to keep secret vital technical information like memory maps and bus
architectures which programmers needed to write software. They then tried to
blackmail programmers by indicating that they could get technical information
only if they signed up to write Atari-brand software. This alienated the
fiercely independent hobbyist/programmer community, and as a result many
serious programmers started writing software for other machines instead. By the
time Atari realized their mistake and started wooing the serious programmers,
it was too late. The only programmers who remained loyal were game programmers." cxliv
- Michael S. Tomczyk
Still, the
inside development team continued to speak out about the third party software
situation, trying to convince management that they were making a mistake.
"The attitude of
the executives was, 'We want to make all the money on the software. We don't
want any competitors'. They were having competitors with the VCS and the
programmers were trying to explain that, 'No, that's not how it works, you need
a big library of software, you need to encourage them,' and I was one of the
people doing that." cxlv
- Chris Crawford
By the end of
1980, some third party software started to trickle out for the Atari 8-bit
computers. Even though most of it was written in BASIC and text-based, such as Midway Campaign and Lords Of Karma from Avalon Hill,
much more was on the way.
Despite Atari's best efforts to bury the gaming
capabilities of the computers, there were programmers, hobbyists, hackers and
midnight coders finding ways to make quality games and get them to market.
By the end
of 1980, Atari had sold 35,000 computers cxlvi and sales picked up so much in December that the machines had to be allocated
in small batches to dealers across the country.
Even so, the computer business
lost $10,000,000 on $10,000,000 in sales, prompting Atari to spin off the
computer division from the consumer division in October so that it would not
mar the massive success of the VCS.